Working Moms: Late and Early Meetings

I have been back to work for a few weeks, and am handling it okay, however one thing has been troubling me and has come up a few times already...

How do you handle early and late meetings? I have a nanny or my Mom come at a certain time every morning, and they expect to leave by 5:30. Where I work, there are often meetings very early or very late... Like 7am meetings, and then 5pm staff meetings. Often I don't know until the day before or day OF the meeting. I feel like it is unfair to give such short notice to my Mom or nanny. I don't know how to tell work that this is inconvenient and there are times where I won't be able to stay...

Ugh, I hate having to do all of this juggling. I understand that they are paying my salary, but at the same time there has to be some kind of consideration for our personal lives (ie, not telling us the night before a 7am meeting).

WWYD or what have you done?

Re: Working Moms: Late and Early Meetings

I can only make meetings like that with advance notice (just 1 day will do).

Otherwise, I tell folks due to a prior commitment (my family!), I am unavailable between the hours of 5-8.

I am more than willing to reschedule a meeting for after 8 PM-when DD is in bed.

Re: Working Moms: Late and Early Meetings

Re: Working Moms: Late and Early Meetings

Re: Working Moms: Late and Early Meetings

Between my husband and I, we work it out. I have a late meeting tomorrow night and he is coming home early. I have heard the excuse of, "oh, my husband can't," and in many cases that is true but sometimes "can't" just means "won't." If my husband truly could not do this once in a while then my career would have to be very different. On other nights, I must accommodate his schedule.

ETA: Meetings scheduled the day of are simply too short on notice.

Message edited 6/28/2009 12:36:46 PM.

Re: Working Moms: Late and Early Meetings

DH and I usually try to work it out between ourselves. One of my clients is in California so they are usually still working when we're ready to leave. If we have to have a meeting at the end of their day, I'll leave work at 4pm and do the call from home. I have had to do many conference calls from my cell on the way home bc I wasn't given enough notice to make arrangements.

Re: Working Moms: Late and Early Meetings

DH and I also work it out amongst ourselves. We don't have family nearby to help so one of us has to be able to pick DS up from daycare. We usually know a few days in advance if we have a late night meeting, but sometimes work comes up and one of us has to stay later than we anticipated. We rely on each other to help out in those situations.